A Bad Day
by Child of Loki
Summary: Senior Field Agent G Callen has decided that he officially is having a bad day. And that's saying something. Because he's had a lot of bad days in his forty-odd years on this planet. (A Callen & Nell hurt/comfort ficlet)


**DISCLAIMER: I don't own NCIS or its characters… (And if I did, there would probably be more shirtlessness going on, doubtless to the detriment of plot.)**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Couldn't shake the idea for this one-shot. Apologies to those following my other stories, but one cannot control inspiration/creativity. Besides, I haven't given up on them, so stay tuned. **

**As to this specific fic, I do love me some character abuse. Primarily, though I like playing with the **_**consequences**_** of violence. So some hurt/comfort featuring Callen and Nell. Basically friendship, but a little hint of more if you read into it (and know my tendency towards favoring the pairing).**

**Oh, and almost forgot, also referenced a different television series I do not own. Anyone who get the reference definitely has points in my book!**

**WARNING: Some (minor amounts of) gore... Also, a little bit of profanity.  
**

* * *

A BAD DAY

Senior Field Agent G Callen has decided that he officially is having a bad day. And that's saying something. Because he's had a lot of bad days in his forty-odd years on this planet. Is it the worst day of his life? Most definitely not. Not by far. But it's certainly much more than simply unpleasant. And he's pretty sure that it wouldn't be overstating the case if he said that his not-so-bad days make other people's bad days seem like a young child's trip to the toy store in comparison. Most people are having a bad day when there's no hot water for their morning shower. Or the coffee's burned. Their car doesn't start. They're running late to work. They're being audited by the IRS. _His_ bad days inevitably include potentially lethal situations. Not that he's complaining. He can always walk away, if he has a mind to do so. But he doesn't. Perhaps he's simply incapable of doing any other thing with his life. Maybe it's at the very core of his nature. And maybe it will get him killed. Killed on a day like this one. Now _that _would be a bad day. And to be honest, he knows there's no other end for him.

And maybe that means he has a cynical view of the world. But he's no pessimist. He simply accepts the facts and moves on. He will be killed in the line of duty one day. It is a truth, an inevitable event. He knows how he will leave this world (because face it, he's no 'die in your sleep' sort of guy). Just as a young mother knows the baby will fuss and cry just as soon as she hits that long pined-for deep REM sleep. Just as a hunter knows his prey will turn away in the same fraction of a second he has begun to compress the trigger and the shot will go wide. Just as the bank teller knows that the bulge under that shifty looking man's trench coat is a shotgun and the bank is about to be robbed...

Which brings Callen's thoughts back round to the specific nature of this particular bad day he is having. He glances at his companion also held hostage to the Bad Day.

"Oh fuck!"

Nell Jones starts and turns to look at him, concern apparent on her pale face.

"Are you okay?" she asks. He'd laugh if it wasn't just as grim a situation as an ironic one. _She's_ asking _him _if _he's_ okay?!

"Nell," he says, as she reaches to pull the cardigan (_her_ cardigan) away from the gaping hole in his thigh and examine the injury. It's not the bullet wound that caused him to curse aloud. So he grabs her wrist, locks eyes with her. "You're bleeding."

"I am?" she asks, looking dazed. And no wonder for the blood loss she's suffered. The entire back of her formerly yellow sun dress is red, the fabric visibly sticking to her petite body, all the way down to her waist. She's drenched with blood, her own blood, and it looks slick, wet, _fresh_. Well, obviously, it's fresh. She'd been fine until that little shoot-out. Stupid rent-a-cop security guards. If Nell's been seriously injured, then he'll be having a certain sort of conversation with the man very soon. Wait. That's not right. That guard is very likely dead, isn't he? And he's not the one who shot her. Well, unless it was unintentional 'friendly fire', which it could have been. But none of that matters right now.

"I think you've been shot. Turn around." Seeing him begin to push himself up off the floor, Nell scrambles to help him but he waves her off, hauling himself into a sitting position with a loud groan, and propping his back against the vault wall to breath heavily for a few moments until the world stops spinning. The bullet is still inside of his leg. And he swears he can feel the hard, hot piece of lead shifting in his flesh.

Callen has never been much of one for television. At least not in his adult life. But he has caught the odd hour or so in various situations over the years. Once, while sitting in an ER waiting room, his partner at the time just a few yards down the hall, getting a bullet removed from his lung, he'd found himself staring at the television in the small, drab place. Generally such sets were tuned to news or weather or some mind-numbing program. But in this case... he blamed the child parked in the chair closest to the screen (no wonder the kid needed those bottle-thick glasses), there was some strange sort of science fiction program playing. There was a band of people on a planet, supposedly not Earth, but looking rather like Earth, and they themselves looking much different than the gallant science fiction heroes he remembered. They looked more like refugees, survivors. At any rate, for some reason there was a maniac trying to kill them. Pick them off one by one with a futuristic sniper rifle. And it was the unique nature of the weapon that had caused it to stick in his memory over all the years. The bullets were like little drills, moving through the body, seeking center mass. And then, of course, since this was television, and the thought of mechanized bullets that _bored_ through human flesh wasn't gruesome enough, they would eventually explode. He remembers, thinking at the time that, well, at least his partner hadn't been shot with one of those bullets.

Now, Callen feels like there's one of those boring bullets in his leg, moving, chewing its way through muscle, blood vessels and connective tissue, gorging itself on blood.

But at least he's feeling the pain. Nell, however, has most certainly gone into shock. Granted her complexion is normally a pale one, but she always seems to have a healthy glow beneath skin the color of fresh cream. Now, she looks ashen, grey around the edges. There's a sheen of sweat on her skin but she's cold to the touch. He grasps her wrist once more, confirming a rapid yet weakening heart rate. He thought the small signs of shock she's been exhibiting were due to her involvement in the violence itself, something she hasn't been inured to like he himself has been over the years. He releases her wrist and swallows hard. This part is going to suck. Even though he knows that given how gravity works the wound has to be located near the top of the blood stain, he starts near her waist, feeling through her clothes for the injury. It's when he presses his fingers against a spot just above her shoulder blade and they sink into a hot, sticky wetness and Nell screams, he knows he's found the bullet wound. A fresh gush of blood pours out at the offense, and he quickly struggles out of his plaid button-down shirt, wadding it up and applying it to the young woman's shoulder to staunch what seems a torrential flow.

"Looks like I'm not the only one who's been shot," he says.

"Really?" Nell twists slightly to see the wound, like a dog eyeing its tail in contemplation of chase. She of course, cannot bear witness to the gore all down her back. "I didn't feel anything, not until you poked me."

"Sorry about that. But you're only _not_ in intense pain because you're in shock, Nell."

And there's not an awful lot he can do for her, even had he not been likewise bleeding profusely from a bullet wound. Well, not so badly for the tourniquet Nell had made out of the little belt that matched her dress. Perhaps she can take comfort in the idea that the items will still coordinate... _blood spatter chic_. If they get out of here. And there's the rub. They're simultaneously safe and _trapped_ in the sealed bank vault. Being injured with no medical assistance, not even a first aid kit is as much a threat as the four bank robbers... or is it only three, now? Maybe they've even managed to whittle their numbers down to two. But again, they're cut off, so there is no way of knowing for certain.

"You should lie down," he says, still holding his shirt tight against Nell's back. She squirms and it's barely enough warning to allow him to move with her as she turns to face him, keeping the now rusty-red spotted plaid shirt pressed to her wound.

"So should you," she says. How she manages a stern, admonitory glare in her condition, he has not the slightest clue. But there it is, Hetty-esque, on her face. However, unlike the woman the stare very much imitates, Callen is by no means afraid of Nell Jones. Yes, he respects her, but he doesn't have to _obey_ her. He's the senior agent, after all.

He grits his teeth against a blinding wave of pain and an accompanying spell of vertigo. Well, he supposes the intelligence-analyst-cum-junior-agent has a point.

"Alright," he says. Nell smiles, again a little bit too expressively for someone with severe blood-loss. "I will if _you_ will."

She frowns and then looks contemplative.

"Agreed," she says. "But first..."

The ridiculous blonde wig (not ridiculous because of the fit... it looks like it could be her natural hair, but he finds he doesn't like it because he misses her auburn pixie cut despite it having been only a few hours of Blonde Nell) they'd put on her head bobs about awkwardly as she looks around. It falls past her shoulders in soft, loose curls, the ends of which are now matted with blood and sticking to her dress.

Finally, she bounces in a little 'aha!' motion and dives for a macrame bag that fits with her whole nouveau hippie persona. How she's managed to keep her purse with her through the chaos, Callen cannot fathom. _Women_. Go figure.

When she fishes about in its depths, he knows she's not searching for lipstick and can't help but wonder hopefully if she's got a first aid kit stashed in there. Or some morphine. Because the bullet just has to be working its way up past his hip by now. Okay. He _knows_ there's no morphine in Nell's purse. And he _knows_ that the bullet he's been shot with was a plain old 21st century 9mm slug. But give a bleeding, aching, nauseous, concerned federal agent a break.

God, how is the little thing still going?! He's seen bigger and tougher men than Sam Hanna (well, it's debatable that he's ever met anyone tougher than his ex-seal partner) brought down by shock from such a wound as Nell's sporting. Especially with the way she's bleeding, he just hopes it didn't nick a major artery, and surely she wouldn't be so mobile if she had. Any loss is likely significant considering that there really can't be that much blood in the petite woman to begin with. But here she is, pulling a small tablet computer out of the apparently vast depths of the bag with a triumphant sparkle in her eyes. How are those big hazel eyes so bright, anyway, when the rest of her is so pale?

"Nell, you need to just stay still," he warns.

"What I _need_ is to complete the operation," she says. "This is the perfect opportunity. I don't even have to pretend to be Harrigan's daughter. He'll never know anyone at all accessed his safety deposit box."

"Yeah, because no one _will_ have accessed it," Callen says. "We don't have the master key."

They'd managed to lift the daughter's key, but it was the standard dual setup that required the bank's master as well. And while it's a little frustrating not to be able to accomplish anything at all trapped in the bank vault as a hostage situation doubtlessly plays out beyond the thick steel door, Callen has to admit some relief that Nell can't tax her injured self any further. Except she's rooting around in her large purse once more, producing a small black case, which she unzips to reveal a set of lock picks.

She grins broadly at his raised eyebrows. Apparently, her education as a field agent has been progressing quite well. Callen wonders briefly who exactly is the culprit for corrupting their sweet, innocent little Nell Jones, turning the young woman who looks more like a candidate for president of glee club than a federal agent into someone who can break and enter. Sam? Kensi? Deeks? Probably- no, _definitely_ Deeks.

She struggles to her feet, wobbling enough to make Callen grit his teeth. If he really strains himself, he might be able to lunge and catch her. Well, break her fall slightly when she inevitably collapses. But amazingly, she doesn't collapse, but rather makes her way the few yards to the opposite wall of deposit boxes, placing a steadying hand on them.

"Shit," she swears lightly as she realizes she's just left a bloody hand-print on the otherwise glistening metal facade. They'll know precisely what she's done if she leaves a blood trail around the box she intends to pull. She wipes her hand on the skirt of her already ruined yellow sun dress. Callen watches one delicate finger with a blood-crusted nail trace along the rows and then down the column of deposit boxes, her soft voice murmuring numbers under her breath.

It's as mesmerizing to watch her small, slender fingers set to picking the lock as it is to witness them nimbly flying across a computer keyboard. It's only as he hears the lock release with a click, that it occurs to Callen that she'll have to lift the box out of its slot. And that _definitely _is _not_ something she should being doing in her present bullet-riddled-shoulder condition.

This is going to suck.

Callen bites into the edge of his tongue until his mouth floods with the warm, familiar iron tang of blood as he battles to rise to his feet. He makes it, barely. Thankfully, Nell is too focused on pulling out the metal drawer that contains the deposit box to hear his feeble fight for footing and fuss over him. _She should be fussing over herself,_ he thinks.

"Here. Let me." He doesn't give her time to protest but takes over, leaning against the wall of metal for support, pulling the weighty drawer from its socket and opening it so she can search its contents and retrieve a small USB drive, which she proceeds to plug into the tablet computer. He can hear the ragged intake and exhale of her breathing and it worries him. But he knows the bullet entered in rather a harmless section of flesh, missing lung and heart, and hopefully the one major artery located in the human shoulder. Then again, bullets could travel once lodged in soft human flesh, even ones not of the futuristic boring-and-exploding variety.

"Knew it." Her voice has that chipper edge it gains when she's announcing something particularly clever she and Eric have done. Of course, none of them can actually appreciate the pair's technical savvy for what it truly is, not having an understanding of the intricacies of procedure the two have to master to obtain their results. But Callen feels they at least show enough gratitude for said end results.

"Is it the List?" Callen asks, already knowing by Nell's reaction that the data contained on the little drive is exactly what they suspected.

"Yes. And thankfully it doesn't look like it has any operational details," she says. "I'm wiping the drive and replacing it with our decoy."

By black mailing a high-level member of Naval personnel at the Pentagon, Harrigan obtained Homeland Security's list of active operatives throughout the world, their personal details, photos and locations. Instead of simply stealing the device and subsequently alerting the black-market dealer, they decided to exchange the data for some falsehoods that could lead interested parties Harrigan sold the information to directly into federal custody.

"Done." Nell ejects the drive, places it back in the deposit box Callen's still obediently holding (not because he was awaiting her permission but because he was fairly certain that once he puts it down he's not going to be able to pick it up again). Nell bites her lip, raising his curiosity. She reaches in again and turns the small piece of plastic and metal approximately ten degrees so that it lies precisely perpendicular to the outer edge of the box. Callen stifles the urge to laugh at the sign that the young woman is likely borderline obsessive-compulsive.

"Are you sure you're done?" he asks, finding himself unable to resist. "Don't want to touch it five times or twirl in a circle first?"

"Ha. ha," she says flatly. But she smiles and helps him tuck it safely back into its cubby, wiping away the blood smear at the bottom edge (which he isn't sure came from his hands or hers) with them hem of her now undeniably ruined dress.

"Good?" he asks. "Now will you take it easy and stop bleeding all over the place?"

"Only if you will."

It's not pretty, but they somehow manage to lower themselves to the floor with groans and spatters of blood. She adjusts his leg, tucks her bag underneath to elevate it, and he's partly jealous that there's more first aid she can perform on his wound than he can on hers.

"Come here," he says, holding out his hands to her from where he's trapped lying flat on his back on the cold, cement floor. She shuffles closer and he catches her upper arms, pulling her down on top of him before she can protest. His hands snake around her and he shoves one down the back of her dress to fish out his shirt, which has fallen and been rendered useless from all of her movement. With his other hand he finds the wound on her upper back, warm, sticky and still oozing blood. Pressing the cotton fabric firmly against the bullet hole causes Nell to jerk and yelp, but then she relaxes little by little, shifting to lie more comfortably against him.

Her cheek is cold and clammy against his bare chest, but he tries to think positive thoughts, focusing on the rise and fall of her small chest against his ribs, the fact that she's breathing. He tries _not _to let his mind wander to the consideration of how firm her breasts are as they're compressed between their rib cages on her inhalations. Or how soft, round and elastic they are as they swell to their original shape on her exhalations. Or how he can feel the hard points of her nipples through the fabric of her dress press into his naked skin.

No. He is _not_ thinking about the young woman's breasts as she lies bleeding in his arms, so...

"Good work, Nell. Dragging my ass in here," he says, as much as way of distracting himself as to keeping his companion conscious. "That was fast thinking."

"Thanks." Normally, she would be ecstatic to receive such praise from any of them, maybe even blush at the compliment. But her words are faint. She sounds tired. _Stay awake, Nell. Please._

"I hope that's not one of Hetty's dresses," he says.

"No," she sighs, and he feels her shift to pick at a bit of the fabric. "It's mine."

"Good, then you might survive this whole incident yet," he says. "Then again, Hetty _likes_ you."

"She does?" Nell sounds only half-interested. She's fading, he can tell.

"Definitely. Me, on the other hand… She would murder me for bleeding on some of her clothes… again."

Nell doesn't respond to his joke, so he tries a different tactic.

"How long has it been?" he asks. He has to shake her slightly to get her attention.

"Since we entered the bank...? 18. No. 19 minutes," she says, her breath tickling the hair on his chest as she apparently doesn't have the energy or compulsion to lift her head to speak to him. 19 minutes? That's not just an estimate. Callen informs her of this observation.

"I'm one of those annoying people with an internal clock," Nell says matter-of-factly. "Part of my brain just always counting."

"Hmm." Callen makes what he hopes is a noncommittal, non-judgmental noise. "So, how long since-?"

"-the robbers pulled their guns?" She finishes his sentence, and he remembers when she first started working with the OSP and had a tendency to constantly interrupt practically everyone. And he wonders if maybe it's not a habit she's rid herself of altogether but only mastered control of. At the moment, he'll take it, just grateful she's more responsive again.

"14 minutes," she says, oblivious to the fact that she's reverted to her foible. "And 13, give or take, since Eric alerted the others of our predicament."

Nearly a quarter of an hour. That is an eternity in tense situations such as these. Actually, Callen himself thought it's been much longer. He can't help but wonder what's going on just beyond that vault door?

And fate being fate, he does not have to wonder for long.

There's a sharp little noise, half whistle, half buzz that draws their attention to an intercom built into the wall just to the right of the vault door. Sigh. The robbers can communicate with them. Which means...

/Hey, feds! Open up or we start killing hostages./

...they can threaten.

He instinctively moves to deal with the new problem, but Nell places a surprisingly firm -given her physical state- hand on his chest and says, "I got it" like they're an old married couple snuggled up on the couch and the phone's ringing. He supposes it's not far off considering his bad leg, and it would take him much more time and effort to get to his feet. Nell's up in a few seconds and shuffling the few yards to the intercom, not looking so much unlike the hypothetical old lady, her shoulders hunched from the pain of her injury. She straightens up, however, and he hears the deep breath she takes before her finger presses the button and she begins to deliver her response. Her quite impressive response.

"As I'm sure you're aware, this vault employs a Davenport-Woods system, with a time lock component. Once engaged, depending on the hours the bank keeps, it will not release for 8 or maybe 10 hours. By my estimate, that means you'll have to wait for another 7 hours and 45 minutes to 9 hours and 45 to gain access to the vault. At that time, you'll need to have both combinations to disengage the lock, combinations given to separate management-level employees. And there's no way to get around it, since the system was designed without a release mechanism on the inside."

Nell gave this speech without a hint of her physically incapacitated state. And Callen hopes she's a good bluffer. Not because he doubts the facts she's just given are valid and fears the robbers will retaliate with violence against innocent hostages, but because he doesn't want it to be true that they'll be trapped in the vault for _that _long. Because without medical attention, not only will he probably lose his leg (which with the way it's currently throbbing, he's not so sure he wouldn't feel relieved for), but more troublingly, he's not sure the young woman currently fighting his battles for him will make it at all. Nell's leaning against the wall next to the intercom, her face pressed against the cool cement, her eyes closed, her breathing so labored he can hear it from where he lies on the equally cold cement floor. And she's shaking, her body trembling from the fake blonde curls down to the pink painted toenails peeping out of her high-heeled sandals.

Several minutes pass without a response, and Callen knows there won't be one, not if they believe what Nell's said and the avenue of threatening the penned-in federal agents is closed to them. She seems to have come to the same conclusion, for she finally looks at him and all he has to do is hold a hand out to her in invitation and she's stumbling back to fall down at his side. He pulls her up to lie mostly on top of him, using the excuse of tending her (oh god, is it really?) still seeping wound, to hug her tight against him. She's shivering, so he shifts the bandage to one hand and rubs her naked bicep with the other, hoping the friction generates at least a little warmth for her. He's starting to feel cold, too, the heat his body is still producing being leached through the bare skin of his back by the cold concrete beneath.

"Will we really have to wait for the time lock to release?" he asks.

"Mm?"

Nell sounds exhausted, apparently to the point of distraction. He wants to pull the wig off her head and stroke her hair, inhale deeply of the aroma of strawberries that always seems to linger about the young woman but he now knows from its absence (buried beneath the chemical odor of the wig) is the scent of her shampoo. He wants to comfort her, tell her she's safe and let her fall asleep in his arms. But he's afraid of what will happen if she fades into unconsciousness. He's afraid she'll never wake up again. So he tries to keep her talking.

"Time lock," he says, and she seems to process his previous question.

"Well, no," she says. Her breath, at least, is warm on his bare skin. Her fingers, however, are not. "They'll call someone in to override it once the stand-off is resolved."

"How long do you think that will take?" Callen has a good idea how these sort of situations go, but like Nell herself said, she's 'one of those annoying people with an internal clock' and she's good at calculations. And if she's thinking... maybe she won't pass out on him (literally _on _top of him).

"Given traffic patterns at this time of day, distance and variable speeds, Sam, Deeks and Kensi should have just arrived on the scene. Statistically, the police would have already been here, at the latest ten minutes after the call went out, setup barricades, maybe even called in a negotiator to take control of the situation..."

"Not if Sam's here."

Nell vibrates in what Callen belatedly identifies as a weak chuckle. Their colleagues have doubtlessly bullied their way into command as soon as they stepped out of their vehicles, if not on the hurried drive over. And Callen has to admit, having the LAPD liaison officer on their team is probably handy in this case. Because for someone the entire force seems to dislike, Detective Deeks still seems to retain a remarkable ability for handling his _official_ coworkers (for all intents and purposes, he's now more an NCIS agent than a LAPD officer).

"How long do you think...?"

"Before Sam talks down the bank robbers, one of the cops shoots Deeks, or Kensi punches one of the cops for threatening to shoot Deeks?" she asks, showing a remarkable insight into the psychology of their team.

"And if I were out there?"

That quiet reverberation against his chest again denotes her amusement.

"Odds are about one minute until you get tired of talking and walk into the bank and shoot anyone still holding a weapon."

This time he laughs. The movement hurts. But it also makes him feel better.

"What about me?" she asks, obviously enjoying the game since she's still remained conscious.

"Two minutes until you hack the system and turn out the lights, allowing the rest of us to go in and bust heads."

"_Two minutes_?" There's a note of feigned offense in her voice despite its faltering strength.

"Well, you'd have to wait for us slow field agents to get our asses in position first."

He's rewarded with a real laugh for the not undeserved flattery, which he immediately regrets as Nell groans, her jubilant shaking having doubtlessly jarred her injured shoulder. Her fingers dig into his skin slightly and it sounds as if she's stopped breathing. Just when he considers shifting the petite body curled partially on top of his so to check her vital signs, she sucks in a great breath and then releases it in a sigh. He's familiar with the feeling. She had held her breath until the wave of pain subsided. Now, she relaxes against him once more, her body transforming from a rigid bulk to a warm, soft weight in his arms. The urge to pull the blonde wig off twitches his fingertips once more and he's not sure why.

"You can be a charmer, when you choose to be, Agent Callen," she says as if there'd been no interruption to their conversation, let alone one caused by her suffering.

"I _can_ be... when I _choose_ to be?" he asks, knowing full well she's referring to his ability and tendency to be darkly moody and curt.

"Mm-hm..." It's a half-asleep murmur, and he's too afraid to let her go to the little peace unconsciousness may provide her until the pain takes over and wakes her with a sudden stab. Or if it doesn't... And she just slips away... No.

"So, how long do you think we'll have to wait?" he tries prodding the logical part of her brain once more.

"The average length of hostage negotiations is 12 hours. But spontaneous incidents of hostage taking, such as bank robberies gone awry, tend to be resolved in much shorter durations. Situations where NCIS agents have taken the lead tend to be resolved in a surprisingly short average of 1.3 hours."

Callen has no idea how she retains all of the information that seems to be stored in that pretty little head of hers, but her brain is obviously wired differently and operating on a whole other level than the rest of theirs. Oh, she tries to hide it. But he's caught the young genius girl faking reading off from the tablet she always has clutched in her hands during briefs like a safety blanket. He's pretty certain that she has a photographic memory that she tries to deny, just like he suspects that the internal clock of hers is one that's in fact precise to the second, but she doesn't like to draw attention to her quirks. Likewise, she just delivers her little factoid about hostage negotiations in a distracted, somnolent voice, more murmur than her usual precise enunciation.

Callen himself is feeling pretty damn weary. And there's this low hum emerging from the back of Nell's throat, half whimper, half moan. She's hurting. And she's exhausted. And he just wants to ease her pain in any way he can. And it seems the only way he _can_ is to stop pestering her and let her fall into the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness.

"Sounds like just enough time for a nap," he says, pulling her just a little tighter to him.

"Mmm... good." Nell, in her hypovolemic stupor, turns her face into him, nuzzling the naked skin in the hollow of his sternum and mumbling incoherently. Her breath is a hot moisture that dews his chest hair and turns the rest of his skin to gooseflesh, but he doesn't even think to stop her as she curls against his side and snakes her arms further around him to hug him snugly. Because, although he's been with quite a few women over the years, he can't remember the last time he's been _cuddled_.

Within a few minutes, Nell's ragged breathing steadies somewhat, slowing to a deeper rhythm as her hold on him slackens and he knows she's fallen asleep. Wanting to see her face, to find the sort of purely tranquil expression facial features only truly seem to acquire during sleep, he strains his neck to look down upon her. His vision is obscured by the blonde mass of hair that isn't at all Nell Jones. And he finds that for at least the third time that day he just wants to pull the wig off and toss it aside. He wants to brush the auburn locks away from her cheek, tuck them behind her ear, and feel the softness of her hair. More so, he's craving that strawberry scent of her, sweet and fresh, because the pungent, sharp and cloying scent of blood has become nauseatingly pervasive in the enclosed space. But one blonde girl walked into the bank. And one blonde girl would leave it, to preserve whatever cover Nell has.

God, what a sight they're going to make for whoever opens that vault door. A petite hippie woman cuddled up to a shirtless man, clinging to one another and coated, absolutely drenched in blood. He can already feel the viscous fluid pooling around him, oozing its way beneath his back, congealing beneath the hand (and in between his fingers) with which he still holds his shirt pressed to Nell's back, and the thin smudges and stains on skin and clothing turning into a flaking crust of brown. His flesh feels like it's crawling as he contemplates the activity of the spilled blood, as if the fluid is a monstrous creature that has taken on a life of its own. Maybe the wandering bullet that will doubtless soon reach its destination will explode and put an end to it. Then again, that might only feed the creature, blob style. He could be Steve McQueen. He always wanted to be Steve McQueen. That man could kick ass... And oh, he's gone delusional. It really might just be time for that nap.

The extremely loud click of a couple dozen bolts releasing in a locking mechanism the size of a door rips Callen from the curious dream he was having, which may or many not have involved him, having escaped a POW camp, trying to outpace on a motorcycle a giant blood-colored blob with a belly full of Nazis, compelled by the need to make it to a field full of strawberries guarded by an annoying, fake blonde. The crazy dream evaporates from memory in the second it takes him to snap to wakefulness. He reaches for the P229 lying to his right side, near his injured leg. Nell stirs where she's still curled against his left side, her head and most of her upper body now a hindering weight on his torso, pinning him to the floor (not that he could move much anyway). He hopes their guests aren't hostile...

The first thing he sees as the door swings open is Sam Hanna's smiling face and Callen lowers his weapon . The ex-seal's expression quickly turns to a look of alarm (no doubt over the state of the two agents lying in a pool of blood on the concrete floor), but Callen can't help but grin.

"It's been what...?" Callen says.

"37.34 minutes," Nell murmurs, squeezing him in a manner like a child might roll over, hug a teddy bear and fall back asleep.

"Yeah. 37.34 minutes," Callen repeats the nearly inaudible whisper of his barely conscious companion. "So, what the hell took you so long?"

The sarcasm appears lost on his partner for the moment as the big man shouts for EMTs. Callen can hear the clatter of equipment as those summoned by the bellow come running. And he may feel quite fuzzy around the edges, is oddly acutely aware of the severe stabbing pain in his right thigh, suspects his skin and clothing have adhered permanently to the floor with coagulated blood, may possibly have a traveling bullet inside of him somewhere, and is cradling a dear friend balancing on the edge of life in his arms, but at least Nell _is _still breathing. And so is he for that matter. Plus, he's no longer sealed into a can like a sardine.

Senior Field Agent G Callen has decided that he officially is having a _good _day.

END (of this bad day, anyway…)

* * *

**A/N: The sci-fi series Callen refers to is _Earth 2_, specifically the episode "Redemption" with the fabulously ridiculous exploding worm bullets. (I actually do love the show. And it had Jessica Steen who later played Paula Cassidy in _NCIS._)  
**


End file.
